After days and nights of swirling blizzard, the somewhat still air on the snowy slopes of the mountain appeared almost eerie. Stars were finally shining without being hid by the thick veil of clouds and the night itself was clear and breathtakingly beautiful as darkness and moonlight alternated on rocky cliffs, smooth snowfields and countless blotches of forest.

Not the beauty of the mountain nor the stillness of air would have been a surprise to the inhabitants of the small wooden cabin, build steadily at the forested side of the mountain, if they only had been paying any mind to it.

“Have you seen that black box with leather straps attached to it? It's about this big.” Chanyeol showed the approximated size with his hands, while leaving out the exact name of the equipment he was looking for. Saying it would have been waste of time. Truthfully the whole question could have been seen waste of time, as the only answer he got was ear-splitting silence. Just like all the answers he had gotten during these three months of sharing the cabin.

“Ah there it is. Thanks,” Chanyeol exclaimed as he spotted the transmitter under the stack of papers.

Three days long snow storm had made it impossible to go out to collect data he had come here for eight months ago, leaving him stuck inside the four walls to arrange some old information and rerun couple of the already done and sent calculations. But that night weather was finally clear and his body was thrumming from excitement as he quickly but systematically collected everything he would need.

After triple checking his equipment while muttering the list of them under his breath, he sat down to the wooden bench by the door and started to roll a pair of thick woolen socks over his thermal ones. Having frozen toes just as much as getting half way into the forest and noticing that he had forgotten one of his equipments. He knew that by experience.

While carefully arranging all layers of his warm gear on, he spoke to the unmoving presence on the other side of the room that played the roles of working area, sleeping area and everything else area because it was the only room in the whole cabin. There was also an outhouse but Chanyeol preferred to call it a shack of frozen , because of certain quite obvious reasons.

“I will go the collect some data,” he explained to the figure in front of the window, “though I guess you already knew that.” Silence. “Well, it will take few hours so don't stay up waiting for me, okay?”

Chanyeol stomped his feet to make sure his boots were properly on and his socks weren't going to cause any more abrasion to his already chaffed feet. He cleared his throat and mumbled a quick bye behind his mask before pushing the heavy, snow blocked door open. The door squeaked and once again he reminded himself to be happy that the cottage was at least warm even though it was thoroughly shoddy in every other way.

He glanced back before stepping to the darkness and closing the door securely. He switched his flashlight on and headed to the forest, powdery snow scrunching under his boots. He pulled his mind away from useless thoughts, concentrating on finding secure footing at the dark forest.

Before the door had closed behind him, the boy had shuddered from the sudden flood of cold air but the dark eyes hadn't moved from the window nor the displeased scowl, that had appeared when Chanyeol had started preparing to go out, had disappeared.

Nature had been taking first steps into winter when Jongin had settled in Chanyeol's cabin. Or more like when Chanyeol had carried him there.

At the day of the encounter, Chanyeol had been heading back from one of his trips to the cliff a quarter mile left from the cabin when he had heard loud noise near-by. It had taken embarrassingly long for him to recognize the sound, but for months his human contacts had been in a form of biweekly visits of Wu Yifan, a Canadian who was paid to bring him food and other necessities, who could really blame him.

When his brain had finally caught on, he had rushed forward, carefully because he didn't want to try out his luck no matter how used to he was hiking around in these forests. It didn't take long to find the source of coughing, because the sound had been loud and constant. Even though he had known by then that the sound was humane, it had still surprised him to find a rather young looking Asian male curled against one of the large rocks, wearing hiking clothes far too thin for the already more than chilly weather.

“Are you okay?” Chanyeol had asked and crouched beside the boy who had been by then making sounds more like gagging up his lungs than merely coughing. “I guess not, ah, I meant, are you hurt somewhere?”

The boy had shaken his head violently and tried to lean away. After few minutes of unanswered questions and pondering Chanyeol had opted to take the boy to his cabin instead of trying to ask for rescue helicopter through his communicate system that was less than unreliable even on the good days.

Getting the couching boy to the cabin had been easier said than done. Even though the boy hadn't put on any fight, Chanyeol had been drenched in sweat by half way of the climb because the boy's legs hadn't been steady enough and Chanyeol had had to partially carry the rather sturdily built male uphill.

It had taken a while until he had managed to get the boy warm up and stop coughing the lungs out, with a help of bile of blankets, warmth of the fireplace and a hot cup of honey water. The boy had almost run back out when Chanyeol had mentioned calling help and, in his desperation to make the other one stay in the safe of the cabin, Chanyeol had promised not to tell anyone about the boy.

His guest had fallen asleep without uttering a single word. While feeling devastatingly guilty Chanyeol had gone through the ragged backpack the boy had been carrying, only to find few clothes more fit for summer hiking than the time of the year, couple of keys and a wallet.

Kim Jongin. Born nineteen years ago. Citizen of Republic of Korea.

A kid far from home.

Chanyeol sniffed and ignored the scraping as the wet patch, made by his moist breathing, as the fabric was constantly freezing and unfreezing in front of his lips and nose. Stars were bright above him and the snow and frost made trees and ground glitter when the light of his flashlight touched them.

It had been a good night for his research and on top of that, he had found some new traces he was planning to follow soon. But it was getting awfully late and his body was stiff and tired so all he could do was to head back and hope for the weather to be as good tomorrow. And even though he was used to the cold, every part of his being craved to the heat of the cabin and somewhat softness of his mattress.

For a second it seemed like there was some movement at the window of the cabin, but it had been over three hours since he had left, so there shouldn't be any. He noticed some boot marks on the snow heading to the outhouse but because of the clear, windless night, they could be hours old as far as he knew, so he entered the cottage quietly.

He peeled the outer layers of his clothing off and arranged them dry close but not too close to the still rather warm fireplace. There were new logs for morning neatly placed in front of it. Useful form of precaution as neither of them were too fond of noticing that there were no more wood blocks left when trying to heat up the cabin with numb fingers after waking up to the cold morning.

Jongin was resting on the bed, facing the wall. The blanket was up to Jongin's neck instead of waist and the breathing was steady but too deep, so Jongin clearly wasn't asleep.

Ah, no matter how quietly I try to be when I get in, somehow I always seem to wake him up, Chanyeol bemoaned inwardly. He shook his head, ignored his tiredness and settled to sit by the table. The relatively loud hum of his laptop and the portable electric generator took over the silent room and he started to feed the new information to the tracking program.

Even over the hum and soft clicking Chanyeol could hear Jongin's breathing find the usual sleeping pattern and he was happy that he hadn't interrupted Jongin's sleep for too long. Jongin was always perpetually sleepy during the days anyway.

Chanyeol wasn't sure how late, or early, it had been when he had finally slipped under covers to the space Jongin always spared for him on the bed, but he knew it was way too early when the coldness of the room woke him up. The tip of his nose felt ice cold and he moved his feet to find warm part of the blanket for his frozen toes. He moved closer to the wall to find the warmer area on the mattress, the one that was always there when he woke up, snuggling deeper to the covers as he found it.

He fell back asleep while listening the soft steps of the wool socked feet and the crackling of newly lit logs on the fireplace.